


A deaf tongue and blinded ears

by Wolftraps (AlwaysBoth)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, non-graphic eye removal, post MAG154
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-09 04:23:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20847470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlwaysBoth/pseuds/Wolftraps
Summary: Jon doesn't think he can get away from the Eye, not really. But things are getting worse and he can at least hope for some distance.





	A deaf tongue and blinded ears

**Author's Note:**

> Also [on tumblr](https://wolftraps.tumblr.com/post/188054659710/i-had-some-thoughts-after-mag154-some-day-this)

Some day this will be over, the Lonely will be gone and Martin will stay and be free of it. Some day, and so Jon can wait.

Except it won’t and Jon knows. There will always be another crisis and even if the current one is averted and they get a reprieve- well. Martin is not so far gone that he could not recover. He is not like Jon, not even like Daisy yet, but that won’t stay true. And by the time he finishes his current efforts, Jon Knows it will be too late. He will be the Lonely’s. Forsaken. Blinding may hide them from the Eye, may even inure them, innoculate them, to the Dark. It won’t free Daisy from the Hunt, won’t spare Martin from Isolation, won’t shield Melanie from the still-grasping hands of the Slaughter. Whatever feeble protection they gain from the Archives will be lost and still they won’t be free.

Jon Knows, but he tries very hard not to.

He’s so hungry and living on stale scraps, and the thought that he could live on real food again gets more and more tempting as he withers under his companions’ ever watchful eyes. The irony. He wonders sometimes, if they might not be influenced themselves, curious to see what will happen to him. Still, he is trying. He’s trying _so hard_ to trust in them. To trust in Martin. To cling to the scrap of humanity that still lies within him and brings him nothing but useless hope and pain.

Two weeks after listening to Eric’s tape, Jon collapses trying to find new statements. He Knows Melanie is watching. That she witnesses his struggle and has to stamp down the sick joy that still tries to take over at seeing his suffering. For a moment she hopes he hurts. And then she reaches out a hand and helps him back to his desk.

He feels his own pull as he sits; remembers she never did give a statement about India. The question is in his throat and he gags on it. Would vomit up the words and the guilt and the horror if he could, since he hasn’t eaten anything material in over a week. Melanie is the furthest removed of all of them, has done everything she can to distance herself. She will not feed the Eye and Jon _will not_ force her to.

And he knows it’s a matter of days before he won’t be able to help himself. Briefly he wonders if he could follow Martin’s path, isolate himself, enter the lonely to remove the temptation. But even if that could work, Peter wouldn’t do it.

Melanie lingers, because no one else is around to foist him on and she feels like she’s obligated.

“I’m fine, Melanie,” he forces out, sifting it through gritted teeth to hold the Question in. “You can go back to rewatching Merlin and messaging Georgie.” She stiffens, huffs, and walks away without calling him on the obvious lie. Thankfully, she closes the door behind her. He locks it once he finds the strength to stand.

In his time as Archivist, Jon has been through, well, a lot. Burrowing worms, stabbing hands, burning grips, being blown up, having two ribs ripped from his chest. Stabbing himself in the eye can’t be that much harder, can it? Except it can. Something about watching a sharp object come ever closer makes it hard. It’s not enough to damage them either, he realizes quickly. Like the finger he tried to cut off, they’ll only heal. They need to be removed. He tries everything viable within reach; cutting them with a knife Daisy left for him after Trevor and Julia, burning them with the lighter, scooping them out with a teaspoon left when the untouched tea was taken away. He even tries using his own rib. The distant banging on the door lets him know his screams were heard. The sight of his desk lets him know he won’t be able to do this himself.

“I’m fine, Melanie,” he yells through the door. The barrier seems to keep the Question at bay for now. If that wasn’t reason enough, the blood covering his face, hands, clothes, desk, would give him away in a second, intact eyes or not.

“The hell you are!” she shouts back. “Open the damn door, Jon.” He doesn’t. Eventually, the pounding stops as she goes to get Basira, and Jon takes his chance. Half-leaning on the wall, weak from starvation and bloodloss, he makes his way to the tunnels as fast as he can. 

There’s no going to Jared again. Even if Jon finds him, Jared would sooner kill and subsume him than just take his eyes. So his only hope is that, just maybe, another avatar might make it stick. 

“Hello, Archivist. You don’t look so well.” Her tone is as casual as ever. Jon tries not to let it bother him.

“Helen. I need… I need a favour.”

“A favour? Oh, this should be good. I’m not letting anyone else go. Unless- you’d like to take their place?” She sounds so smug, but the idea tugs at him the same way submitting to the lonely had.

“That’s- more tempting than I’d like to admit,” he sighs, “but no. I need- I need you to take my eyes.”

“Your eyes?” Helen’s unnerving, ringing laughter echoes through the tunnels, compounding on itself until it seems the ringing is in his head. “Oh Archivist, you are a delight. A bit peckish, are we? You know you could just eat.”

“_I can’t-_” Jon stops, sighs, pushes down the anger. “I almost want to, honestly. I _do_ want to. But I’ve come too far to just… give in. It wants me to- to take another statement from Melanie. If she won’t feed it by helping then she can feed it by- I think- I think feeding on someone else, a stranger, will work for a while. But I know that the protection everyone in the Archives has right now won’t last forever. Not as long as other entities still have- have a _claim_ on them.”

“Hmm. You know? Or you Know?”

“I Know. And I Know that, as much as you tell me to embrace being a monster, you like them too much to want me to do that, too.”

Helen is quiet for a moment, deliberating. “What makes you so sure this will work?”

“Eric-”

“Yes, yes, I heard. But he was an assistant to a half-rate archivist, still human the both of them. In a manner of speaking. You, on the other hand, are The Archivist.”

“As my inability to gouge my own eyes out has made abundantly clear. Martin- Martin thinks doing this, severing my ties to the Eye may kill me. I don’t-” he sighs again, “I don’t actually think this will sever my ties. Not completely. I don’t think there is any escaping for me, not truly. But I need to do _something,_ if only to keep it at bay. I just need to keep them safe.”

“Very well, Archivist. I suppose I am curious to see what will happen. I would suggest you hold still.”

“Now- ah- aahhhh!” The pain is blinding, or maybe that’s just the lack of eyes. For a while, time becomes as hard as Helen claims it is. And then the pain fades as his healing kicks in and awareness of the world returns. It’s all dark, but the sounds-

“Would you like to keep them?” Helen asks, and her resonant voice, so close, seems near deafening.

“N- no,” Jon says, and then Knows, “They’re going to grow back eventually anyway.” It will take several months, at least, so he supposes it’s better than not having done it, still. He can’t tell if he doesn’t feel so watched because of the tunnels and the distraction of pain, or if he’s actually gained some distance from the Eye. “Could you-”

“Lead you out? Of course. Would you like a door?”

“_No. N-_no, thank you. Just… a guide, if you would?” He swears for a moment he can hear her smile.

“Shame. Very well, this way, Archivist.” Her sharp, bulbous hand on his arm feels… it _feels. _Jon can’t find the words but the sensation of it is too strong, and yet he can’t pull away.

He knows the very moment they reenter the Archives. He Feels it. He Hears it. He can almost sense every room and passage. He Knows where each employee is. Helen pulls away, and it doesn’t matter, because he doesn’t need sight to find his way back to his office. It calls him. He hears Melanie and Basira coming down the stairs at the other end of the floor. The Question is on his tongue before they ever see him. It doesn’t actually matter, though. He already Knows.

_Audio. Vigilo. Opperior._ He remembers. I listen, I watch, I wait. 

There is Knowledge ringing in his mind. The utter uselessness of what he’s done. He’s not the Watcher. The Witness. He is the Archivist. And while eyes certainly help, they’re not what the Eye needs of him. There’s been barely any point to him reading statements for months.

The Beholding never really needed his eyes. It only needs his ears.


End file.
